The beats are howling for truth
   angry wolves in need of a fix
   in a pack in Central Park at
   3 am, junkies on the prowl.
   They won't be denied a deity.
   Ginsberg's Howl their Bible.

I try drawing your memories fading.
   Your eyes aren't right. I can't taste
   you that destroyed my earnest vows
   with Lust's cruelest and rapid waste.

   I can't feel your warm young *******,
   ******* that grew so hard by my caress.
   I can't see us dancing naked in the dark.
   We drink we fight we wonder at the mess.

   I wish I'd kept the photos. I cremated us
   in an ashtray drunk so many years ago.
It all plays out eventually after all.
We all end up ashes in afterglow.

We all thank our sacred gods
we're living the American dream.
Our slums are better than the others
less disease more milking mothers.
Irish, Italian, German, English all
came through Ellis Island hoping
for tickets to a better maybe place
looking for the better opportunity.

I was lost inside my speed
  drugged mind hoping for calm
  but all I got was lost in Oz,
  a shrink's chair with no exits.
  I jumped from mountains of lies
  and fell into the truth's grave.
  I settle for lesser compromise.
  I'm saved by a clock's loud tick
  death's second hand metronome
  keeping track of all our lives.

I loved the fireworks.
    I loved the fierce heat.
    I loved the moisture and
    your heart inside mine.
    The first week we never
    came up for air. We'd
    gladly drown together.
    We found each other and
    we abandoned the world.

He splashes light in night sky,
  wants love that makes her cry
  remembering yesterday's goodbye,
  begs her to explain. She just sighs.
  She was a ***** he loved, paste white.
  He splashes light into the midnight
  making stars that swirl like madness.
  He splatters a yellow sun in our world
  with crows in skies warning us of doom.
  He cuts his ear off in a white room.
  He wraps it in paper and gives it to her.
  He's taken away to a place to get better.
  In a French field he paints and asks why
  shoots and ends his life and the crows fly.

Chelsea Hotel

Addicted to your taste
your crazy waste
self inflicted pain
to your flesh stain
I gladly confess
squalor's mess
rats scurry
in a hurry
to nowhere
already there
mirror over bed
you giving head
come again
love the sin
tip the maid
don't be afraid
Janis won't care
lay her truth bare.

I've been unlucky in love. I will
   be rich when I make a risky bet
   on a new innovation. Trust new
   love because you're near 70.
   Just grab for the brass ring
   one more time and remember to
   take your blood pressure meds
   and ******. Update your will.

In a fancy restaurant a tank
  of lobsters on death row
  waiters penguin like hover
  with rice ready to throw
  at a newly wedded couple
  with their baggage in tow
  no pedigree but filthy rich
  going south to escape the snow.

I've got no time for your suffering.
   I've got no time for your struggles.
   No time for your ugly riots and burn
   down your hoods. My own destruction
is at hand drunk in Bond Hill with a
failed marriage fights and failures
strange fruit rotting on the tree
I called you all ******* below
you called me down and I went into
the white cotton fields in your dark mob
and picked with ****** fingers and said
"You're strange fruit, I'm strange fruit,
   we're all rotted fruit hanging from trees.
   You set me free. I share your despair.

Not old enough to buy beer
we virgins seduced ourselves
in Eden's garden of tall grass
in Greenhills we surrendered
broke vows and commandments
and parents' hearts for biology.

Birds cawing. Rats gnawing. Cats clawing. Craving.
  Bells ringing. Choirs singing. Dead bringing. Score.
  ****** faking. Thief's taking. Mischief making. Under.
  Alice small. Alice tall. Red Queen's fall. Floating.
  Birds cawing. Rats gnawing. Cats clawing. Craving.
  **** cawing gnawing clawing faking or OD. All work.
  Fists punching. Fingers touching. Lips turn blue. Bye.
  Tears spilling. Sobs drilling. Graves filling. Grief.

I believe in air
and growing hair
patches puberty,
free me liberty.
All lives matter,
same old batter,
never quite right
too dark or light.
We live too long
to love a song
or smoke a ****
or love her ****.
Oh My God, I do
confess it's true.

I pushed the button
  I need the shot in
  the devil's purse
  it seemed like hours
  probably minutes as
  I ground teeth to dust
  comes the angel nurse
  she memorized the verse
  heaven's squirt in vein
  I wander in the cool rain
  come soon morphine noose
  **** pain or me. Choose.

I can't believe the incidence of rage.
No one is willing to turn the page.
America is left dying on her vine.
Every empire destroyed in its time.

Ride subways to your job
go type at a plastic tube
wait for bosses to lob
demands and the KY ****.
Bring the ***** or tea
and the New York Times
offered on a bent knee
guilty of Pravda's crimes.
Careful or live in our hell
you will own nothing at all
at the bottom of a deep well
nobody will accept your call.

There's a poem in there if
   I can strip away the debris
   and polish it like silver
   and read it at a posh affair.
   I'll use a singsong baritone
   to give it gravity. It matters.

I have no fear or hate,
just a shadow of a fate.
Never too early or late,
nothing I can anticipate.

I was empires once
now reduced to dust
cars were everywhere
now just orange rust
high majestic mountains
worn to infertile dirt
wind leaves parched pains
time demands hours of hurt.

We swarm to be heard.
We write to plant our seeds
in your furrows. Ideas take root.
Cocktail chatter and bedroom whispers
spread them far and wide from church
to AA to shooting galleries.
We shout words in sound proof rooms
wrapped in straight jackets and put down.

The old poet poses with his worn out lines.
    He's near 80 and written everything that matters.
    Loves, lost loves, betrayals, redemption, children
    recovered from his own disasters. Lines repeated
    they're frayed of their own weight, Autumn's dust.
    Stay with me and view me in Winters graveyard.
    I'm an old poet with a young man's heart pleading
    for an honest appraisal of my balance sheet.

Alchemist of words
  makes us weep and hope
  swoon and wonder why
  give us a poem of rope.

  We met in Eden Park and
  ******, red A's burned
  on our skin for the sin.
  The world still turned.

We've changed, we're old.
If I had another chance
to taste you I would.
Give me a glance
see me young again
backstairs ******
escapades reaching
stars and breaking
time's limitations
old, fat, forgotten.

I learned my ABC's and read the secrets.
  Words like puzzle pieces showed me truth's
  that Gods never thought we'd understand.
  I found poetry at world's darkest edge
  when flying too close to her boiling sun
  at midnight in my blind blank black heart.
  Ginsberg spoke his generation's addiction
  crawling at dawn to find their needed fix.

I'm a forgone conclusion
    and an empty promise.
    My words fail to inspire.
    My loves are always lost.
    Trouble always finds me.
    Read between the lines and
    find the real me with you
    in my heart on my sleeve.

I just had myself to blame
   no control of love's flame.
   I saw her and felt the heat
   on the backstairs we meet.
   God awful lightening flash
   burns our world to cold ash.

My memory is less than it was before.
I can't remember my five wives names.
I can't forget thunder of  slamming door.
I will never heal my cruel inflicted pains.

Walk the dog.
Feed the hog.
Shake my snake.
A nap I'll take.
Wine at seven.
Dream at eleven.

I will write my first song
play guitar chords along
sing it to myself with beer
in fogged bathroom mirror.

I hear echoes from my past
and from my future at last
I hear my death and your hate
and my final everlasting fate.

Is there anything I can do
to fix the broken to you?
I always loved you most
you were the first ghost.

I want to be 16 again
looking for mortal sin
Catholic girls' willing
to spend God's shilling
to forgive the 'shoulds',
naked in Winton Woods.

Ambiguity is my magic wand.
Like a shifty lawyer I parse words.
I hide love under cups watch close
as I move them quickly about
then point the true one out.
All cups are empty. It's magic.

The universe is on display tonight.
    A storm is coming. Birds in flight
    as lightening cracks the sky in two.
    There's half for me and half for you.

I was driving a Uhaul filled
    with my meager life thus far
    with my latest burned out love
    beside me going to Nashville.
    I thought she'd stay behind.
    I couldn't break hearts clean
    like a good hanging neck snap;
    always death by a thousand cuts.
    The worst lovers stick like glue
    and never seem to have a clue.

We lasted just a moment
    in my 72 years long ago.
    It seemed like a play date
    more than our marriage.
    ****** and beers and ***
    kept me inside the lines
    usually. I was naked at
    a party and climbing up
    trees to spy on you and
    recording private moments.
    I color outside the lines now.
    Nobody notices or cares.

I lost my mind
in a poker game.
I saw the blind
never the same
just nocturnal
not to blame
just eternal
end of flame.

He stands behind the podium,
   grand and pigeon proud. Poet
   for the ages. Long dead but
   died young a poet of drunk
   appetites ******* with passion
   fitting a poet after all. Dylan,
   I'll die on your cross writing.
   I kneel at your grave weeping.
Your bones below are twisted
mocking your poses in life.

I've lived stone cold lover.
Punched you into the stars
forgotten in morning sun.
You never forget the scars.
I've loved all your women.
They always wanted more.
Pound me harder while my
husband pounds the door.

I burned our love to the ground
    myself. I soaked it all in
    kerosene and lit the match
    and threw it at the very heart.

   There was cruelty, ugly words,
   petty slights. Sometimes there was love.
   We danced so hard at night in our cups
   we'd fall to the floors laughing.

   I let you go and fell apart but very
   slowly began to piece my parts back
   where they belonged. I heard
   music again; it never sounded right.

   Years have brought much love to my
   door. I've held many women close and
   played at love the best I could
   with my heart so out of tune.

I hide the truth
swear the lies are true
gaslight my vows
swore an oath to you

Now I'm gonna' **** you
drag life from the bone
flesh feeds the buzzards
we all end up alone.

On rainy days I entertain some from Seattle.
   Sunny days remind me of Huntsville friends.
   Christmas brings Cincinnati childhood to me.
   Boston ghosts come in dreams of Georgine.
   Catholic school. Deny physical; embrace spiritual.
   The spring flowers are my Tara in Virginia.
   So many angels have found my heart, I can't count.
   My heart is haunted most by my first. Kathy.

Peeing through a hose is nice.
Erratic aim past 60 roll the dice.
Pregnancy is a woman's dream
until birth's agonizing scream.
Marriage vows we both are one.
4 weddings later and I am done.

You weren't seen
in my blind spot
too old so young
perfect ink blot
no trouble at all
self absorbed dad
in and out of love
edge of mind mad.
I forgot to care
for the tattered
broken Daughter
always mattered.

We live on shore ships tempt
to come aboard and find truth
we hear sirens beckoning and
too soon lose precious youth
death leaves its shadow still
moving in a frame of light
from a full moon window old
sailors toast youth's flight.

It's dark
Eden Park
we ****
we ****
break rules
naive fools
hard times
little crimes
no forgiving
live and let living

It's all subscription,
small extermination.
We own nothing.
We have everything.
Rent us our souls
and burial holes.
The bills always come
compound interest sum
late payment fees
bank account freeze
live in prison states
guards wait at gates.
It was Dayton, Ohio,
now it's zone Zero.

I read your poems.
I'm stunned! I'm mute.
I write Dr. Seuss.
I write the same poem
everyday. Sin. Guilt.
Broken promises.

I was firstborn son
namesake was done
delivered by a nun
already on the run.

They came from London
armed bobby's to North
Ireland to subjugate us
steal our very worth

we fight tooth and nail
the ******* British
****** Sunday ******
us like a barrel of fish

we won't forget
we'll never forgive
bombs guns fires
this is how we live